young mother herself holding her little king. It is a picture beaming
with both pride and happiness. That must have been one of life’s happy
moments--one of the few supreme flashes of earthly felicity. And on
compulsion--dinner, always in Germany a mid-day meal. I am a true
Bohemian now; but I was a housekeeper once, and I don’t like to derange
the order of a household, so I am always “on time.” After dinner, out
again by myself, Miss S---- having a German lesson. First, a call at a
book-store for a variety of Munich gossip. The proprietor is a handsome
young man--cultivated, traveled, of good family--his father being a
captain in the army, and a very genial, well-mannered person. I drop in
on him quite often. He has been all over the United States, even to
Cincinnati. I did not ask him about W----! As I sauntered out--I do
everything just as the whim takes me--I thought I’d have a droschke
drive, so I hailed one and stepped in. Oh! the earth, air and sky of
these Munich days! A whole week of them, too, of that kind that makes
one exclaim, “Mere existence is a luxury.”
After awhile I dismissed it at the door of the Kaulbach Gallery. It is
not a large one, only a large room, as full as it can hold of the
sketches and a few pictures of that popular Munich artist. It is on a
retired street; a very pretty, tasteful building in a garden. A few,
from one to three or four persons at a time, were coming and going the
hour and a half I loitered. I am not going to bore you or any one with a
catalogue or description of pictures, but one was so beautiful and
touching I want you to look at it a moment through the lens of my--pen.
A city still in the shadow of the night; gleams of dawn in the east;
just floating up into the clear, higher air an angel clasping a little
child in its arms, with only the words “Zu Gott;” such a common idea, so
simply wrought out, but I could not get away from it.
The sketches were intensely interesting. Some were outlines with pencil
or pen; others quite fully worked out, of nearly all his great
masterpieces.
The cunning of his good right hand seemed never to have been at a loss.
His portrait, painted by himself, stood on an easel, with three fadeless
chaplets placed upon it by that loving homage which honors alike those
who give and those who receive.
Out again and on again, turning my feet obstinately from the “home
stretch.” Several squares took me to the “English Garden,” founded by
Count Rumford, _our_ uneuphonious “Mr. Thompson.” Acres of greenery in
drives, walks, bowers, lakes, streams, etc., right on the edge of the
city. Like Kane and the Polar Sea, I stood on the brink but didn’t jump
in. I did not quite like strolling in its shady depths by myself. I had
driven through, and the knowledge which neutralizes temptation might
have had as much influence to the abstinence as the discretion. No
bringing myself to the self-application of the word cowardice! Besides,
there was counter-attraction somewhere within several squares which I
had not seen, Ludwigkirche, with its altar painting, “The Last
Judgment,” the largest oil painting in the world, sixty-three feet high
and thirty-nine feet broad. Did you know that? I didn’t till the
guide-book told me. You are welcome to my hard-earned information. I
wish I had time to say something I want to just “in this connection.”
Hm! I haven’t; I must hurry on. Of course, the painting is a masterpiece
of art. Isn’t that the conventional expression that slips so
“trippingly” from the half-fledged tourist? Among the spirits of the
blessed is that of King Ludwig, crowned with laurels, attained
presumably after his separation from Lola; also that of Dante, the poet
of heaven and hell, in a red garment; and of Fra Angelico, the painter
of Paradise, in the Dominican robe. I did not give a close inspection to
the _spirits of the other order_. Vesper service was in progress, and I
sat and watched the devout at their aves and paternosters, a scene in
its way food for rather painful meditation. Such mechanical worship;
such slavish superstition! Descending the entrance steps as I left the
church, I was struck by their worn appearance. The daily tread of the
multitudes of worshipers has left them almost unsafe. Then I lagged
along Ludwig Strasse, the fine street entirely originated by that same
King Ludwig who had public spirit and energy enough to hide a multitude
of faults.
The sun was leaving me so fast I had to turn homeward, which I did as
reluctantly as you turn back from some of your long tramps, I suspect.
Isn’t a Munich day a rather fascinating span of life? I match the above
day by day. Do you know what a large city it is--230,000 population? And
how grand and clean and comfortable? I am wishing I could transport it
to the United States for myself and my elect ones to dwell in! For oh!
such bread and butter and coffee as abound! There! the weakness for
creature comfort will not be thrust aside!
Don’t you want to know what neighbors I have? A banker at the end of
this _etage_, a widower with a cherub of a child, and in the next suite
of apartments to mine--a baron! Such a splendid-looking man! If he had
only come sooner--you know the adage about propinquity--before I had
quite lost my heart! I couldn’t help it. I was taken “so unawares”--not
in the least dreaming what would be the issue--when I could not wrest my
gaze from that superb creature in such brilliant array. Don’t tell on
me! A Prussian officer! His uniform is the acme of taste, gorgeousness
and becomingness; his off-duty saunter on the street the ultimatum of
grace; his easy, dignified, unconscious bearing the perfection of
deportment. He never stares at one. It was the merest accident that our
eyes met, and the damage was done. Our glances got tangled in each
other, and the more we struggled the more hopeless the knot. His name?
You promise not to betray this weakness--but could I be a true American
woman and come abroad and not lose my heart? His name is Legion; for I
can’t tell them apart any more than I can help adoring them all--the
graceful, gracious, gorgeous beings of gold and plumes and cockades and
pompons, and altogether _such uniforms_! For what else were they made,
indeed? See how I take you into my confidence? And now then, father
confessor, having made a clean breast of it, I shall betake myself to my
couch, in the words of “Goggles,” to “sleep the sleep of youth,
innocence and beauty.” Did you say you were going to write fortnightly
or weekly? The first will be best.
L. G. C.
München, October 23, 1882.
[Illustration]
MUNICH.
Say, how many copies have you of those foaming sheets you sent me from
M---- for a letter? And to how many other addresses have they been sent?
I am curious to know. They were never evoked by me--of that I am sure.
Nor do I attribute their existence to the overwhelming influence of any
other special feminine divinity; rather to one of those supreme
intervals--his satanic majesty’s own--when
“The d--l finds for idle hands
Some mischief still to do.”
You were alone; you were “in a state of mind;” you
“Sat in revery and watched
The changing colors of the waves that broke
Upon the idle seashore of the mind.”
You summoned up “spirits of that vasty deep, red, white and blue;” the
flimsy creatures, what were they but shades of all your divinities, the
slim maidens of your boyhood, the stately goddesses of your cavalier
period, “the pretty widows” of your “old bachelor” era? And so with the
prodding of that flock of shadows and the impulse of your besetting
iniquity you wrote that sample letter--good for one, good for all? I can
see the whole performance. Thankee, sir; I am not to be mistaken for one
of that throng. There is nothing gregarious about me. Just leave me out
when you give your “free lunch” feasts of sauce and sugar-plums! You--
But I enjoyed the composition “all the same.” What a pity you have never
taken to novel writing. This letter--I can’t call it mine, you see,
because it belongs to all of them--ah! this letter “shows your hand.”
Believe me, you’ve missed your field in literature. Are you too old to
begin over? I ask this because I am beginning to have misgivings in the
face of my old sturdy belief that one never outgrew the ability to do if
only the will were not wanting. I--I--how shall I admit it? I find there
are things I can’t do. Of course it is because one grows old, even with
the best intentions not to. No, I never want to; and here I am minus the
roses of other days and plus wrinkles and gray hairs beyond all
calculation, and seriously contemplating a mouthful of false teeth. Sigh
for me! Was ever anything so lamentable? I am so glad you told me about
your evening with my dear friends, the F----s. How plain you made me
see the familiar room. It was good of you all to remember me so. They
are of earth’s choicest--so high-souled, so loyal, so good. I have yet
to see the man who does not do homage to Mrs. F----, and the Doctor is
one I delight to love and honor. I hope you met my other friend, Mr.
W----, of whom I dreamed last night. I was talking to you, and used this
expression: “All the wrong he has ever done in his life--all and the
only--is to have always done the right.” When I awoke I remembered it.
How long I have known him--nearly from the beginning--away back yonder
when I was a wee thing in pinafores. He said so pleasantly of that long
acquaintance: “The first time I saw her she was so high” (meaning the
midget I was) “and swinging in an apple tree; and she swung into my
heart, and has been swinging there ever since.” Are not those the kind
of words “for remembrance?” How good he has been to me. Some day I’ll
make your heart throb, as these human hearts of ours are quick to do,
hearing of the great and noble of earth, telling of all he has been to
me and done for me in this life of mine, that has been more sorrow and
heartache, you know, than comes to many. If you could know him as I
do--I think, no--I know you would appreciate my affection and reverence.
His life has been a constant growth, grace overcoming nature, the lower
giving way to the higher, conquest upon conquest, till I almost tremble
at that nearness to perfection which means fitness for that better
Elsewhere, the ultimatum of all our hopes and dreams. Here are words of
a man about him: “Isn’t his the tenderest, the lovingest, the gentlest,
the purest, the whitest and best soul God ever gave to man?” Did ever
you know any man speak so of another? Think what mine will be when I
give them leave. Do you observe that I speak to you with perfect
freedom, having no fear to express my enthusiasm? It is because _I know
you_ will not transmute the pure gold of such a friendship into any
drosser metal. Ah! I shall indeed be disappointed if you do not meet
him. You should call on his wife. You would find her very companionable.
You remember her that rainy noon call, I am sure.
Dear old M----! It is looking its best for you, is it? Its best cannot
be easily surpassed. Those beautiful hills that I seem to have climbed
and scrambled over almost as soon as I learned to walk! How it thrilled
me to read your words about them! Ah! you cannot know how they look to
my eyes, that always see them in a twofold light--that of my vanished
past as well as the present! My husband and I were always sweethearts. I
do not clearly remember anything farther back than my love for him. He
used to bring me the wild flowers that grew all over them; and we have
climbed them together many a time and gazed at their beauty together,
and planned the future that lay ahead of us in that wonderful sheen and
glow that is visible only to such untried and happy beings. Dear hills!
beautiful hills! sacred hills! Yes, I know them in their length and
breadth, from their high crests almost to their foundation stones. Did
you know I was a _grangeress_ before we met? Well, I had that kind of
possession of them also. From the top of mine, I could stand by a tall,
bare trunk--torso, may I say?--of a monarch in its time, and look
westward over the range, including Water-works Hill, to Mr. W----’s. I
and my dog did it often; sometimes in the dewy mornings; sometimes the
sunny noons; sometimes in the long, tranquil slants of the setting sun.
Oh! I know those hills, every foot of them, at all hours of the day, in
every light, under every shadow, from their oaks and beeches down to
their bramble thickets; every wild flower, every noxious weed,
petrifactions, pebbles! What have they that is not a part of my very
being? Do you wonder I love them?
I wish some one had had a long enough memory to show you where I was
born, not because of that unimportant event, but because you can see
even now what an exquisite spot it must have been. It is “the point”
where Limestone Creek runs into the Ohio. I am always thankful I was
born on the banks of a river and in the shadow of the “everlasting
hills.” We were playfellows, as it were. The shells I have scraped
together; the sand hills I have heaped up; the stolen wades in the edge
of the water; the skiff rows; the fishing with pin-hooks and worm-bait!
Ah! my beautiful river; that you want to spoil to me by crossing against
my wish! Is it you who are so “cruel?” If you are still in M----, ask
Dr. F---- to show you “the little house where I was born.” It was my
grandfather’s, and my father’s is near by. Make some excuse, you two, to
get a walk all about them, just to see the views. You will thank me for
it, I know.
Why did you not tell me who that “exuberant set” was? Give me the names.
There is no curiosity about _me_, you see. As for that counterpart, I
don’t like to feel there is another so like me. I cannot imagine who she
could have been. Next time don’t let her escape you. Clutch her with, if
need be, that fierce brigand salutation adapted “Your _name_ or your
life.” There has been an annoying individual of that kind here. She even
had the exasperating presumption to have not only my initials, but my
name. Think of another “Mrs. Laura Collins” roving around Europe, and
getting your letters and opening them. Do you think it was any
satisfaction to read her indorsement, “opened but not read by Mrs. Laura
Collins.” The only thing that reconciled me was that she was “Mrs. G. L.
C.,” instead of “L. G. C.” I am glad she has flown “to other parts,” and
hope we shall not clash again. But wasn’t it aggravating? I did not have
any mail for two weeks on account of her getting and keeping it. That
“Bayerische Vereinsbank,” and I let her have “a piece of our mind,” I
can tell you, about it. Don’t be vicious about my “Bavarian officer.”
That special one I have not seen again, though I “own up” to an eager
scanning of every one I meet. To be sure, I have not the least idea I
should know him, but I can’t keep from looking for him. It was such a
peculiar experience, that rencontre. Think of having to lift your eyes
to look at one exactly as if in answer to a call, in spite of yourself,
and being overcome in the same instant by an utter helplessness to look
away, while you became conscious that each was “slowing up in passing,”
for you know not what might happen next. It was terrifying too, because
I am sure he felt as I did, that nothing ought to happen, except that
each should keep straight on. We did somehow manage to. But you see I
can’t keep from telling you everything--after a few rods--I could not
help it--I looked after him! not, however, without some feminine
craftiness. I made believe I was attracted by a pretty shop window.
Oh--h--h--h!
He, too, standing transfixed in the street, was looking back. Then _was_
a shock! Then how each hurried away! I plunged into the shop, and quite
bewildered the clerk with various wants. I simply did not know what I
was asking for. And he! Ah! what has become of him? Alas! I know I shall
never see him again! And also, I know equally well--and this is the
saddest of it--I should not know him if I did! Could any one be more
harmless?
My charming Munich is showing its kinship to the Alps. The snow is
falling fine, thick and fast. I am not quite delighted, because I do not
like the “beautiful snow.” I meant to have had one whole year of summer
time, getting to Italy before cold weather. But Miss B----’s sickness
changed my arrangements. The party I joined were to winter here for
study. Now it will be January or February before we see that “sunny
clime.” Still, I am told by those who have been there that February,
March and April are _the_ months for it. I want to see it only under the
most favorable circumstances, so am content to wait. To-night we are to
attend a concert of the choicest music, given by some of Germany’s
finest musicians. We have had two seasons of opera already. I don’t know
how many more we are to have. Booth is to be here by and by, and _we_
mean to give him a welcome indeed! As for chronicling all I am doing, I
can’t think of wearying you to that extent. But be sure I have no idle
days. They are all as full as they can hold. They will do to talk about
in that wonderful “by and by” we have laid out in the future. I am sure
there are some points in your letter I have not taken up; but I dare not
take them up now, lest such length of letter frighten you into breaking
off the correspondence. So much valuable time as the reading
exacts--how can you spare it? Besides, those points will keep!
I shall expect a full and true and most minute report of your entire
visit. Don’t keep an item back. It will be ever so mean if you did not
write that “next Sunday.” Won’t you be glad you did, if you did, when
you read this? But indeed and indeed, I am very grateful for your
letters, and am your friend to my finger tips.
L. G. C.
Munich, November 18, 1882.
[Illustration]
MUNICH.
Your second Sunday letter just received and read “twice over.” You can’t
realize the pleasure it gives me. No woman is material for a
full-blooded Bohemian. Giving myself, as I am trying to do, wholly up to
this life, few would believe what a homesick heart is nearly all the
time beating beneath my vivacious words--a heart sick for the home
broken up forever; for the dear ones that will meet me no more on any
threshold this side the grave. Think how I must feel, reading your words
about my lost home--how they take me back to it. I shall never see it
again. I could not bear it. Yet I am very grateful to you for thinking
to tell me about it; the beautiful tree; the kindly intention to send me
a leaf; the plan to see it again. May I tell you such thoughtfulness has
the tenderness of a woman in it? My mother would have done the same.
Thank you for it. And believe me, my heart has never before so accepted
you as a friend. It is very gratifying to me to know that you are so
delighted with M----. I have always thought it one of the most
beautiful, picturesque bits of earth my eyes have ever seen.
Did I not write that Heidelberg, so famous in song and story and
guide-books for its scenery, reminds me of it? It is fortunate you are
such a walker and climber. No one who is not can know the beauty of this
little planet. Be sure to go over all Mr. W----’s hill, or, rather, his
chain. I think you will say it is unequaled, or almost so. If you could
only have him for a companion, he would show you many points we have
enjoyed so many times, morning, noon, and night. There is a moonrise
view that would make you speechless with ecstasy. He found it out for
the rest of us. One special hillside is full of wild flowers in the
later springtime, where in the earlier spring he has a charming little
sugarcamp. We have had such frolics and picnics in the sugar-making
season! Be sure to find “Maple Point,” and the oak tree with the gnarled
roots, where we sat to gaze and talk. You can see away across the river
there, even to the home of your friends.
We had quite a snowfall on Saturday. Sunday was a day of steady cold. It
and to-day were one of the innumerable church feasts--the anniversary of
the founding of the order of St. Elizabeth. You know the story--her
great charitableness and her husband’s opposition; how he caught her
going out with a basket of food and commanded her to uncover it; and lo!
when she obeyed, the contents had been changed into flowers--to meet the
emergency! Well, the royal family here, the ladies only, belong to this
order, and enter into the celebration with great ardor. The first day,
the service is a brilliant one, the princesses in fine carriage
toilettes, with their gilt and crimson _prie-dieu_ and seats, on
magnificent rugs, the priests in splendid vestments, the royal usher in
blue and silver, and another gorgeous attendant in scarlet and gold. The
service is for the _living_. The royal dames give alms. The service
to-day was for the dead, with a total change of programme; the church
draped in mourning, the princesses and their seats and desks, the
priests, and a grand catafalque. This was lighted by innumerable tall
wax candles, in tall silver candlesticks. The music was low and solemn;
the people subdued and sympathetic. I was much interested in the
spectacle. Besides, I had such close and satisfactory views of
_royalty_! And, let me tell you, royalty looked at me with quite as much
curiosity as I looked at them. One of the princesses is a daughter of
the Emperor of Austria. You know the empress is said to be the most
beautiful woman on a European throne. She was a Bavarian princess, and
her portraits here justify that verdict. This daughter of hers, the wife
of a Bavarian prince, cousin to the king, is a tall, elegant-looking
creature, one of the most so I have ever seen, with pretty brown eyes,
sunny light brown hair and fine complexion. Her mouth and nose spoil her
for a beauty. She looks happy and good. The king likes her, and
sometimes invites her to dine with him, without including her husband!
Don’t think there is any scandal; this is simply one of his
eccentricities. He _may_ be mad, he _is_ queer, but his reputation is as
spotless as a woman’s. Poor king! You know it was a love affair that
upset him. You don’t know how my sympathies are enlisted in his behalf.
And he really seems just to miss being a grand being. The concert was a
wild German enthusiasm. The handsome tenor--tenors are always
handsome--“nicht war?”--sang twelve songs, so clamorous was the
audience; and he looked like--“Goggles,” only “Goggles” is even
handsomer.
Oh! I have so much to tell you; but yesterday and to-day in the cold,
damp church--no
[Illustration: Louis II, the Mad King of Bavaria.]
fire or heat even--have given me a dreadful cold, and I must stop and
cosset myself and try to get rid of it. Thank you for your liberality
about my religion. You are right in your suspicion. Even my good friend
Dr. F---- calls me “heterodox.” Indeed, I believe my only religion is,
that the life be right and then the soul cannot be false.
L. G. C.
Munich, November 20, 1882.
[Illustration]
MUNICH.
“You couldn’t do it again!” I never repeat myself. It would indeed lower
my “crest of haught” to find such barrenness or stinginess of
entertaining powers as that shows. “Madam, there be those more gifted
who make a point of repetition; it is set quite above your contempt,”
will you say? Do not I know that? I can quote you the prettiest kink in
rhyme “o’ that side of the question.” Listen:
“That’s your wise thrush; he sings his song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
That first, wild, passionate rapture.”
And I could show you in the daintiest script where one “not all unknown
to fame,” a latter-day writer of much popularity, as I have seen stated,
raves and raves again over “the sweet widows.” Such things stare me in
the face and might silence me, so potent is the force of example. But
was ever woman made so meek and yet so set in her own way? Even your
taunt does not goad me to a second letter of “the altogethery” type.
I--I think indeed I only wish to show you I know the trick of that
style without the help of wine or whisky. Pitiable pair, your Byron and
Sheridan! Please, sir, you insist upon my style so much, you wonder more
and more where I picked it up. I am urged to ask, is it all style and no
sense? I am sure I told you once I picked it up where I picked up my
brains. I don’t see why you do not accept that statement. You will never
get nearer the truth, will you?
“True it is, and pity ’t is ’t is true.”
I re-read the passage at once, and it reads just as I wrote you--“in,”
_not_ “within.” I reckon you’ll have to come down, “Capting Scott;” not
I “cushion my claws.” But a victory is twice a victory when the victor
is generous. I shall not sing peans over your “altogetheriness.”
“Poetical justice” is divine when it is on the right side of the river.
How you linger in the land of enchantment! Who would not under the same
witchery? “The divine weather” and Hood will help us out--
“Oh! there’s nothing in life like making love,
Save making hay in fine weather.”